1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to electronic devices, and more particularly to user interfaces for electronic devices.
2. Background Art
Compact portable electronic devices are becoming increasingly popular. As more and more users carry these electronic devices, manufacturers are designing smaller devices with increased functionality. By way of example, not too long ago a mobile telephone was a relatively large device, and its only function was that of making telephone calls. Today, however, mobile telephones fit easily in a shirt pocket and often include numerous “non-phone” features such as cameras, video recorders, games, web browsers, and music players.
Just as the feature set included with compact portable electronic devices has become more sophisticated, so too has the hardware itself. Most portable electronic devices of the past included only manually operated buttons. Today, however, manufacturers are building devices with “touch sensitive” screens and user interfaces that include no physical buttons or keys. Instead of pressing a button, the user touches “virtual buttons” presented on the display to interact with the device.
Despite the convenience and flexibility of these devices, many users today still prefer the familiarity of a more classic user interface. Some find the non-responsive touch screen user interfaces cumbersome to operate and prefer, for example, a more traditional keyboard. While some electronic devices allow a conventional keyboard to be coupled as a user interface, prior art keyboard technology results in large form-factor designs. Users generally do not want to carry large keyboards along with their compact electronic device. As a result, such keyboards are relegated to limited usage. It would be advantageous to have an improved user input device.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.